Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[ViolentPanda]

Urgh. How appallingly common. He'd probably be chuffed with the wolf association anyway.

As long as it was a white wolf or grey wolf, not if it was a black wolf or red wolf.

 

[Balbi]

Penny for your thoughts.

(Which will be her blog title/Times column header in twenty years)

 

[butchersapron]

People should really go back and read her piece on the EDL from september last year (that she mentions in that vice shite). Lots and lots of 'quotes' from people who don't want to give full names and all talking in the exact way that Laura would imagine people like that to speak.

"You're not allowed to be British in Britain anymore," says Connor's mum, who doesn't want to give her name. I ask her what she means. At first she is hostile -- "what, don't you agree with them?" -- but when I say that I'm a journalist, she visibly relaxes

For how much longer is she going to get away with this?

Note she also only 'quotes' white racists, whilst muslims/asians get the laurapathy treatment.

 

[love detective]

these mates of hers who have done time in Wandsworth sound made up as well

 

[Balbi]

God, those poor journalism students. It'll be like aversion therapy hopefully.

 

[Brixton Hatter]

Brave, intrepid Laurie. Boldly going into a pub to interview EDL leaders where no brave intrepid upper class Oxbridge journo has gone before.

...and buying him lunch.

 

[butchersapron]

these mates of hers who have done time in Wandsworth sound made up as well

I've got friends who've spent time within its squat brick walls,

I reckon she means prison-visiting vicars - "spent time" rather than "done time". Maybe someone could ask her?

 

[butchersapron]

There are more interesting questions – such as why a man who claims to be an authentic, representative voice of “working class” Britain turns up to a meeting in a shiny new BMW 1 series with leather seats, kitted out from top to toe in designer sports gear and reeking of posh cologne.

There remains, however, a stubborn strain of snobbery on the middle-class left that is all the more important to address because it is uncomfortable.

 

[mk12]

HYPOCRITE WARNING

 

[Delroy Booth]

edit: oh yeah, and that laura thinks that you can't be w/c and dress nice or have a nice car, you must live in some crack-hovel and have mud and old fish in your hair or something.

To be fair butchers, it does piss me off when I hear Lennon and co present themselves as "the authentic voice of the working-class" when he and Kevin are fairly middle class from everything I've seen. If some member of the Labour party was going around describing themselves as the true representative of the downtrodden and dispossessed like these EDL lot do, before turning up to an interview in his flash BMW and wearing expensive designer clobber, I doubt anyone would have a problem with calling them out on it. No-one ever leaps to Billy Bragg's defense when people point out he lives in a mansion.

And yeah to pre-empt you jumping down my throat about this, I fully accept what you're saying, and just because you have a half decent car or wear decent clothes doesn't make you middle-class or whatever. I think Laurie might have a conception of working class that's based on a pretty outdated vision of malnourished chimneysweeps, men with mucky overalls and flat caps etc that much seems clear

But as a general principle, anyone claiming to be a "Voice of the working-class" or even a socialist in much more vague terms, should avoid vulgar and ostentatious displays of personal wealth.

Anyway this quote is just amazing. How she's managed to internally justify giving a platform to Stephen Lennon to herself.

When the opportunity to do this interview came up, I hesitated. As a reporter, I was fascinated by the possibility of getting to see the pocks and pores on the human face of British fascism, but as an anti-fascist, I’m aware that UK organisers have maintained a long tradition of refusing to grant any sort of media or speaking platform to the far-right. The "no platform" principle keeps right-wing extremists on the fringe by denying them the legitimacy they crave. No room for racists, neither in the public conversation nor on the streets. It’s part of a strategy that has been successful in driving back wave after wave of far-right organisations in this country down the years.

So, that’s one reason that this interview will not reproduce any of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s actual opinions about Muslims, immigrants and people of other faiths in Britain. The other reason is that his actual opinions are boring and predictable.

Translation: I wanted to do an article on the EDL coz it would help my career, but wanted to keep some semblence of credibility, so had to come up with some absolute bullshit to justify doing it.

Personally I'd have preferred it if she didn't give the fucker a platform in the first place. But seeing as she was determined to give him one anyway, I'd also like to be able to decide for myself whether or not his opinions were boring an predictable, instead of having someone else decide for me and edit them out. Infact Lennon's opinions on Islam, as ugly as they may be, are the only thing worth interviewing him about. They can't be any more boring than everything else in the article.

Then followed by this absolute cracker

He orders the most expensive steak on the menu, with an enormous plate of cheesy potato skins, and chuckles that this is why he likes to meet left-wing journalists: so he can have dinner on their dollar.

No shit Laurie. Thank god for middle-class leftie journo's, Lennon would've starved months ago without their largesse.

As long as there's a cottage industry of vain journalists prepared to indulge this chump, with a prurient interested in the blood and gore of the far right but with far less interest in the underying political issues that lead to them develping, using whatever contorted logic they can to justify it, I'm sure he'll never go hungry.

 

[killer b]

But as a general principle, anyone claiming to be a "Voice of the working-class" or even a socialist in much more vague terms, should avoid vulgar and ostentatious displays of personal wealth.

bullshit. what's ostentatious about designer sportswear & perfume? ffs.

 

[weepiper]

Yeah...cos working class people have never gone for ostentatious displays have they...

 

[Delroy Booth]

bullshit. what's ostentatious about designer sportswear & perfume? ffs.

I was thinking more of the BMW tbh, what's the point in owning a BMW if not to show off how much money you have? It's not like they're economical to run.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

I've bought some really nice perfume a few times before, and it cost a lot.

 

[killer b]

dunno, i don't drive. two of the (w/c, not well off) lasses in my office drive 'em though. apparently they're good cars.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

The warehouse manager at work owns a BMW.

 

[butchersapron]

I was thinking more of the BMW tbh, what's the point in owning a BMW if not to show off how much money you have? It's not like they're economical to run.

Who says it was his anyway?

Nah, that's just the same stuff that you recognise as bullshit but on a larger scale.

 

[Delroy Booth]

dunno, i don't drive. two of the (w/c, not well off) lasses in my office drive 'em though. apparently they're good cars.

Might be good cars but they're stupidly overpriced because of the status of having one.

 

[butchersapron]

Might be good cars but they're stupidly overpriced because of the status of having one.

The idiocy is in the idea that someone on a w/c could not afford one - either through their wage or through credit. The car itself and its qualities are irrelevant, as is it being TR seemingly having one.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Who says it was his anyway?

You suggesting he's borrowed someone's BMW? Why, to impress Laurie Penny?

Incidentally I remember way back in the day Mark Collett (remember him?) owning a BMW and driving it round Leeds like he was the dogs bollocks, and all the BNP in west yorkshrie hated him for it coz Mark never had a proper job in his life.

 

[butchersapron]

You suggesting he's borrowed someone's BMW? Why, to impress Laurie Penny?

Incidentally I remember way back in the day Mark Collett (remember him?) owning a BMW and driving it round Leeds like he was the dogs bollocks, and all the BNP in west yorkshrie hated him for it coz Mark never had a proper job in his life.

People do borrow cars. Esp to show off. But it's utterly irrelevant if HE did or didn't, beyond it being useful in pointing out the sewage about w/c people in Laura's psyche.

 

[Delroy Booth]

The idiocy is in the idea that someone on a w/c could not afford one - either through their wage or through credit. The car itself and its qualities are irrelevant, as is it being TR seemingly having one.

To be fair actually you've got a point, you can pick up a decent BMW for around a grand.

And I'm basing this on an assumption that it's a nice BMW he's got, could be some old banger.

 

[chilango]

I remember years back going up to Tower Collery in South Wales to give the miners a bucket of cash we'd collected for them. The miners (quite understandably) gave me, a scruffy student in tatty army surplus, some very strange looks as they climbed into their BMWs shaking their heads.

 

[killer b]

doesn't matter anyway. having nice threads, a good looking motor, looking after yourself etc has long been a feature of many w/c people's lives. to deny that someone is the authentic voice of the working class based on them having these things simply exposes the writer's ignorance. and that's just the first paragraph...

 

[el-ahrairah]

Penny for your thoughts.

(Which will be her blog title/Times column header in twenty five years)

corercted for you.

 

[DotCommunist]

how expensive is the most expensive steak in a toby or a beefeaters going to be? a big 15 quid?

 

[butchersapron]

Laurie, of course, didn't use the vice wallet that whole day.

 

[Balbi]

I've bought some really nice perfume a few times before, and it cost a lot.

*adds to list of reasons*

Fascist!

 

[Balbi]

corercted for you.

Five years? Nah, she'll be a Labour appartchick by then - intentional mispelling there to signify Penny's role of the new way of chickenism - feminism by those who remember liking the Spice Girls when they were five.

 

[el-ahrairah]

What percentage of an American Apperal ad featuring a nude pubescent girl does it take to pay for a nazi's lunch anyway?